Friday, August 10, 2007

Back To Full Duty, Thank Goodness

At one point I thougth I was going to be fired for videoblogging against corruption and racism on my time off. For a brief 2 months, my employer had to make sure I wasn't a danger to myself and others. I'm back to full duty now, thank goodness.

Some very important people in the place I work- people responsible for policy, well being, and lives, have no clue what a blog is. Maybe because it's not made by Microsoft or AOL. It's like the black monolith from A Space Odyssey: 2001. Maybe I can explain from the average web user knowledge base with my limited patience. What is this thing?

A long time ago, illiterate people had to look at cathedral ceilings to get a depiction of heaven or hell, listen in to the clergy, and pretty much live this way because books weren't plentiful. No one had the time to write them, make them or read them.

Thanks to the Chinese woodblock printing, important documents, didn't have to be copied by hand anymore. Yes, before woodblock printing, books were copied by hand.

The printing press meant more books, cheaper costs to get the word out to people. If you didn't like one thing to read, well, there's something else to read.

So let's look at this thing called a web blog. Maybe It will help to look at John Locke. That's right, the British guy. Yep, the British guy. Speaks English.

He had this thing called the Rights of Man. Someone rich like Donald Trump can put out a full page ad in the New York Times or place superbowl ad fairly easier because he has more money. For the average guy, he would have to combine his efforts with 2 million other people just to get the same financial clout as Donald Trump.

Ok so before I get totally out of focus here, the business model of old media goes out the window with the level playing field of the web. Yes, this site is made with free tools and I've even made most of the material on this blog under a Creative Commons License.

For someone who has taken the time to vlog in front of the UN to promote dialogue (On Dialogue video episode), try at a lighthearted attempt the self defense video genre by way of the Vlog Santa (Vlog Militia Man video episode), encourage charity (Charity video episode), cross cultural exchange (Making Hummus I&II video episodes), make a 2 hour documentary on the victims of WW II, series of interviews of peace activists( United for Peace & Justice video episodes), and cover people at work at fires- it is an extremely distressing and insulting position to be in.

On top of that I've made podsafe free music, Creative Commons images and video for the sole purpose of creative cooperation.

To be considered as potentially making terroristic threats after publicly complaining about a racist rant made me feel like a victim of retaliation.

Who am I to complain? In the plains of Darfur, might makes right as people starve to death, get raped, beaten, maimed, and driven from their land.

The remedy in this situation seems to be say yes to whatever, become a racist, become anti anything from the Middle East (but not Jesus), not get the Buddha, and contribute to the dismantling of the Bill of Rights by bowing to censorship.

Where is it written that exercising free speech is against the Constitution of the United States? Oh oh, I'm not a majority, I'm a minority so I guess I don't a have right to ask this.